> In my market, Australia, the energy retailers are regulated to increase prices once a year. Increase prices. Never a saving for the retail customer. They’ve worked out that can skip all that messy market bullshit and just regulate annual increases.

Have you actually read the regulation?

  The AEMC said the new rules were in response to requests from Australia's energy minsters. They will:

    * prevent retailers from increasing prices more than once a year
    * ban excessive charges like late-payment fees for all retail contracts
    * ensure all consumers are entitled to a fee-free payment method
    * prohibit retail fees for vulnerable consumers
    * ensure vulnerable Australians are receiving their retailer’s best offer
    * prevent retailers from charging more than the standing offer price if the customer's initial offer changes or expires. This will protect customers from paying higher prices for their loyalty.

  The rules to improve consumer confidence in retail energy plans will come into effect on 1 July 2026. Those that assist hardship customers take effect from 30 December 2026.

There is a difference between

A) regulation that forces a price rise once a year.

and

B) regulation that stops more than one price rise (if any) in any year.

It sounds like what you are talking about is the "Default Market Offer", aka the Australian equivalent to the "standard offer" in the United States. I cannot possibly stress this enough: nothing about the existence of the standard offer has anything to do with the relative economics of solar to other energies, so it's bizarre that you're showing up in a middle of a thread about solar power specifically, and treating a phenomenon that applies to the energy market as a whole like it's only a problem for solar.

And remember what this thread is about - Solarpunk in Africa, off the grid, which is a case that has nothing to do with regulated utility grids, so it couldn't possibly have less to do with the article that this thread is about.

You're insisting you're not discovering the concept for the first time, yet even in this comment you're still doing the same thing, treating systemic regulations that apply to energy markets writ large like they somehow only apply to solar. You wouldn't be doing that if you understood beforehand that these systemic problems had nothing to do with solar in particular, you would be doing it if you were just starting to look into solar and discovered those issues for the first time, which I what I think is happening.